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Hi there. This is Tom Mel and this is
the Wayne Kramer Jail guitar doors MC5
roaring distortion sound in a
box. Wayne Kramer stood for truth,
justice, and the rock and roll way. The
narrative arc of his life is one that is
so inspiring to me as someone who's a
longtime friend of Wayne. Uh first of
all, his band, the MC5, with him at the
guitar helm along with Fred Sonic Smith
invented the template that became punk
rock music. They played uh in an
unapologetic way uh from the heart with
their radical politics in the forefront
and their radical music going
head-to-head with it. Uh then he had a
period of time in his life where he was,
you know, he was an outlaw. You know,
Wayne spent some time in prison with
drugs and alcohol and then came out of
that in his later years to be a real
saintly hero of the downtrodden and the
oppressed with his organization, Jail
Guitar Doors, providing instruments uh
for inmates as rehabilitation tools to
the hundreds of benefit shows and
charity shows that he played. He devoted
his time uh to helping those who needed
it most, all with a guitar in his hand.
I've known Wayne a long time. I met him
I think I met him on his 50th birthday.
So I knew Wayne for the last 25 years of
his life. And you know when I met him he
was a rascal. You know he was a
scoundrel. He rehearsed across the way
from where Rage Against the Machine
rehearsed. And uh you know I was just a
great admirer of his work in the MC5.
And um when there was some MC5 tribute
record you know I raised my hand first
and said uh we'd love to be a part of it
but it's got to be kick out the jams. if
you know Aliens Landed and you said what
is like the rawest moment in the history
of rock and roll that live recording of
kick out the jams with the you know
starts with kick out the jam
and then unleashes itself like you know
like the four horses of the apocalypse
like running wild in a Beverly Hills
crystal shop you know bringing sort of
this Detroit power is just it's just
beyond on almost every record that I've
ever worked on the working title of the
wildest fastest song has always been MC5
five and I will continue that tradition
uh in Wayne's
honor. We were playing a show at Sing
Prison, right? And the night before we
played another charity show in New York
City and Wayne Kramer says to Billy
Bragg backstage, he says, "I love the
sound of your acoustic guitar. I'd like
to get like a better sounding acoustic
guitar." And so Billy pulls it out and
has a sticker on it that says jail
guitar doors. Uh and Wayne's like,
"What's that?" And Billy's like, "Well,
it's this program that I run in England
that provides instruments for uh inmates
and uh it's named after the Clash song,
Jail Guitar Doors." And Wayne says, "Uh,
yeah, that song was written about me."
And Billy's like, "What?" He's like,
"Yeah, Wayne and his deals of cocaine,
etc." In the first line of this song by
the Clash, Billy's favorite band, names
his organization after a song that was
about Wayne Kramer. So the next day,
we're driving up to sing prison to play
and Billy and Wayne are sitting together
talking about jail guitar doors. We play
this, we play a show at the prison and
so and Wayne gets up in the middle of
these performances and gives a speech. I
didn't know Wayne for a while. Wayne was
a good friend and a great great dude,
but he transformed in front of this
audience of of hardened inmates. His
vernacular changed. He spoke as one of
them to them. Us watching Wayne, we're
all just like, "Holy shit." Like Wayne
Kramer that we didn't really understand.
We didn't really understand. And then
afterwards on the bus ride back, Wayne
and Margaret decided to form Jail Guitar
Doors USA in programs in I think
hundreds of prisons around the country.
Uh they've got the Capo Center here in
Los Angeles for people who are youth who
are out of prison to learn how to make
beats and have jobs in the music
industry. It was uh Saul on the road to
Damascus, you know, like the light came
down and Wayne Kramer changed before my
eyes and began this incredible
organization that will continue uh not
just his legacy, but the legacy of
goodness that was in Wayne's heart. This
uh jail guitar doors pedal is kind of
Wayne Kramer in a box and it's it's a
distortion pedal and for those of you
who don't know like the moment in your
soul when rock and roll arrives as a
guitar player is the first time you step
on a distortion pedal. I remember as a
kid like you get a guitar, you get a
little $50 guitar, $50 amp, and you plug
it in and you think you're going to
sound like Ace Freely or Jimmy Paige and
instead you
go like, "Oh, oh, I mean, that's not
exactly what I imagined it was going to
be." And then you realize that the
missing component is a distortion pedal.
Now, what they've tried to bake in to
the uh jail guitar doors distortion
pedal is not just Wayne's sound, but
Wayne's attitude um and the grit and the
rawness of like Detroit and of the MC5.
Um this is the guitar pedal that was
used on the song Heavy Lifting that I
recorded with Wayne for the last MC5
record. This is the
rhythm and that's nice. But then you
press the
button and you get Wayne Kramer. Thank
you very much.
What I love about Wayne Kramer and his
legacy um is the inspiration it
continues to provide. You know, uh
seeing Wayne on daily on the front
lines, one as a great father, two as a
great guitarist, and three as an
inspiring activist. Those things will
echo through the ages, especially
through uh Jail Guitar Doors and the
Capo Center where both the people who
work with Jail Guitar Doors and the
people that Jail Guitar Adors, the
hearts and uh souls that it touches, uh
Wayne spirit continues to mark on.
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